Not wanting to rain on anyone's parade here, but the thought did just occur to me that from 2007 to 2009 the entire US aviation industry reduced their overall asm's by around 7% (I eye-balled that off of
Data Elements), and as I recall United was most definitely not alone in parking significant amounts of iron. In fact it is that industry "right sizing" exercise that so dramatically turned around the balance sheets of every legacy carrier during the last 18 months.
Point is . . . maybe just maybe, UAL management parked the 737 fleet because it made sense from a business standpoint. I suppose its possible that management would close a profitable branch of business in hopes of encouraging a merger, but not overly likely. In fact I just posed the question to my wife who is a career finance executive who has worked at numerous businesses at the CFO level or just below and when I posited the question of did she think it possible her response was first to laugh hard and then ask "Are you serious?" So I'm guessing she doesn't consider it likely either.
Of course that and a buck will get you a cup of coffee, but just thought I'd put out a little point counter point to keep things "real".